Charles Rangel: “in June of 2000, President Clinton allowed me the great honor to take some veterans back to Korea in commemoration of…”

“in June of 2000, President Clinton allowed me the great honor to take some veterans back to Korea in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War. They were all members of the Second Infantry Division. We left Fort Lewis, Washington, in July and August of 1950, and we had left more men behind dead than came home. The raggedy group of veterans that went back, all black because we were in a segregated infantry unit, most had not gone to college, and, like myself, some had not even finished high school, we thought then that we were fighting for our country. But the more education I got, the more sophisticated I got, I realized we were fighting for the United Nations. Then when I became a Member of Congress and I led this same group of tattered veterans back to the same battlefields, they asked, why did Congress send them to South Korea and expose them to North Korean and Chinese warfare? And I had to tell them that this Congress never did send them there. No vote was ever taken in this Congress to say that they were at war with the people of North Korea or the People's Republic of China. I made a vow to them, and I am keeping it today, that never will I delegate the responsibility of considering the dangers of war. I will not leave it to the President, unless he brings me evidence that we are in danger. I will not give it to the United Nations, because I do not believe that this sacred responsibility should be transferred.”